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Managing for timber and biodiversity in the Congo Basin

Multiple-use forest management is considered by many as a preferable alternative to single-use, generally timber-dominant, management models. In the Congo Basin rainforests, integration of timber and non-timber forest resources plays a key role in the subsistence and market economies of rural communities. This is however mainly occurring in ordinary forest lands and not in formally gazetted forest lands. In this paper we briefly explore the major land-uses in the Congo Basin and their actual or potential for multiple-use. We then focus on the most extant production system (industrial logging concessions) and analyze the existing issues and options for managing actively both timber and biodiversity with a special emphasis on wildlife and the role of certification. A few promising but yet unfinished examples do exist in the region and we review these cases to draw lessons and recommendations. We contend however that true multiple-use could only be realized by expanding beyond boundaries of formal management units through new innovative land-use units, allowing a spatial cohabitation of the interests of local people, of conservation proponents and of extractive industries in the same management unit.